Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
486.--More persons exist without self-love than without envy.
["I do not believe that there is a human creature in his senses arrived
at maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by
this passion (envy) in good earnest, and yet I never met with any who
dared own he was guilty of it, but in jest."--Mandeville: Fable Of The
Bees; Remark N.]
487.--We have more idleness in the mind than in the body.
488.--The calm or disturbance of our mind does not depend so much on
what we regard as the more important things of life, as in a judicious
or injudicious arrangement of the little things of daily occurrence.
489.--However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the
enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either
pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.
490.--We often go from love to ambition, but we never return from
ambition to love.
["Men commence by love, finish by ambition, and do not find a quieter
seat while they remain there."--La Bruyere: Du Coeur.]
491.--Extreme avarice is nearly always mistaken, there is no passion
which is oftener further away from its mark, nor upon which the present
has so much power to the prejudice of the future.
492.--Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite
number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant
expectations, others mistake great future advantages for small present
interests.
[Aime Martin says, "The author here confuses greediness, the desire
and avarice--passions which probably have a common origin, but produce
different results. The greedy man is nearly always desirous to possess,
and often foregoes great future advantages for small present interests.
The avaricious man, on the other hand, mistakes present advantages for
the great expectations of the future. Both desire to possess and
enjoy. But the miser possesses and enjoys nothing but the pleasure of
possessing; he risks nothing, gives nothing, hopes nothing, his life is
centred in his strong box, beyond that he has no want."]
493.--It appears that men do not find they have enough faults, as they
increase the number by certain peculiar qualities that they affect to
assume, and which they cultivate with so great assiduity that at length
they become natural faults, which they can no longer correct.
494.--What makes us see that men know their faults better than we
imagine, is that they are never wrong when they speak of their conduct;
the same self-love that usually blinds them enlightens them, and gives
them such true views as to make them suppress or disguise the smallest
thing that might be censured.
495.--Young men entering life should be either shy or bold; a solemn and
sedate manner usually degenerates into impertinence.
496.--Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
497.--It is valueless to a woman to be young unless pretty, or to be
pretty unless young.
498.--Some persons are so frivolous and fickle that they are as far
removed from real defects as from substantial qualities.
499.--We do not usually reckon a woman's first flirtation until she has
had a second.
500.--Some people are so self-occupied that when in love they find a
mode by which to be engrossed with the passion without being so with the
person they love.
501.--Love, though so very agreeable, pleases more by its ways than by
itself.
502.--A little wit with good sense bores less in the long run than much
wit with ill nature.
503.--Jealousy is the worst of all evils, yet the one that is least
pitied by those who cause it.
504.--Thus having treated of the hollowness of so many apparent virtues,
it is but just to say something on the hollowness of the contempt for
death. I allude to that contempt of death which the heathen boasted they
derived from their unaided understanding, without the hope of a future
state. There is a difference between meeting death with courage and
despising it. The first is common enough, the last I think always
feigned. Yet everything that could be has been written to persuade us
that death is no evil, and the weakest of men, equally with the bravest,
have given many noble examples on which to found such an opinion, still
I do not think that any man of good sense has ever yet believed in it.
And the pains we take to persuade others as well as ourselves amply show
that the task is far from easy. For many reasons we may be disgusted
with life, but for none may we despise it. Not even those who commit
suicide regard it as a light matter, and are as much alarmed and
startled as the rest of the world if death meets them in a different
way than the one they have selected. The difference we observe in the
courage of so great a number of brave men, is from meeting death in a
way different from what they imagined, when it shows itself nearer
at one time than at another. Thus it ultimately happens that having
despised death when they were ignorant of it, they dread it when they
become acquainted with it. If we could avoid seeing it with all its
surroundings, we might perhaps believe that it was not the greatest of
evils. The wisest and bravest are those who take the best means to avoid
reflecting on it, as every man who sees it in its real light regards
it as dreadful. The necessity of dying created all the constancy of
philosophers. They thought it but right to go with a good grace when
they could not avoid going, and being unable to prolong their lives
indefinitely, nothing remained but to build an immortal reputation, and
to save from the general wreck all that could be saved. To put a good
face upon it, let it suffice, not to say all that we think to ourselves,
but rely more on our nature than on our fallible reason, which might
make us think we could approach death with indifference. The glory of
dying with courage, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave
behind us a good reputation, the assurance of being enfranchised from
the miseries of life and being no longer dependent on the wiles of
fortune, are resources which should not be passed over. But we must not
regard them as infallible. They should affect us in the same proportion
as a single shelter affects those who in war storm a fortress. At a
distance they think it may afford cover, but when near they find it
only a feeble protection. It is only deceiving ourselves to imagine
that death, when near, will seem the same as at a distance, or that our
feelings, which are merely weaknesses, are naturally so strong that they
will not suffer in an attack of the rudest of trials. It is equally as
absurd to try the effect of self-esteem and to think it will enable us
to count as naught what will of necessity destroy it. And the mind in
which we trust to find so many resources will be far too weak in the
struggle to persuade us in the way we wish. For it is this which betrays
us so frequently, and which, instead of filling us with contempt of
death, serves but to show us all that is frightful and fearful. The most
it can do for us is to persuade us to avert our gaze and fix it on other
objects. Cato and Brutus each selected noble ones. A lackey sometime
ago contented himself by dancing on the scaffold when he was about to be
broken on the wheel. So however diverse the motives they but realize the
same result. For the rest it is a fact that whatever difference there
may be between the peer and the peasant, we have constantly seen both
the one and the other meet death with the same composure. Still there
is always this difference, that the contempt the peer shows for death is
but the love of fame which hides death from his sight; in the peasant it
is but the result of his limited vision that hides from him the extent
of the evil, end leaves him free to reflect on other things.
THE FIRST SUPPLEMENT
[The following reflections are extracted from the first two editions
of La Rochefoucauld, having been suppressed by the author in succeeding
issues.]
I.--Self-love is the love of self, and of all things for self. It
makes men self-worshippers, and if fortune permits them, causes them to
tyrannize over others; it is never quiet when out of itself, and only
rests upon other subjects as a bee upon flowers, to extract from them
its proper food. Nothing is so headstrong as its desires, nothing so
well concealed as its designs, nothing so skilful as its management;
its suppleness is beyond description; its changes surpass those of the
metamorphoses, its refinements those of chemistry. We can neither plumb
the depths nor pierce the shades of its recesses. Therein it is hidden
from the most far-seeing eyes, therein it takes a thousand imperceptible
folds. There it is often to itself invisible; it there conceives, there
nourishes and rears, without being aware of it, numberless loves and
hatreds, some so monstrous that when they are brought to light it
disowns them, and cannot resolve to avow them. In the night which covers
it are born the ridiculous persuasions it has of itself, thence come its
errors, its ignorance, its silly mistakes; thence it is led to believe
that its passions which sleep are dead, and to think that it has lost
all appetite for that of which it is sated. But this thick darkness
which conceals it from itself does not hinder it from seeing that
perfectly which is out of itself; and in this it resembles our eyes
which behold all, and yet cannot set their own forms. In fact, in great
concerns and important matters when the violence of its desires
summons all its attention, it sees, feels, hears, imagines, suspects,
penetrates, divines all: so that we might think that each of its
passions had a magic power proper to it. Nothing is so close and strong
as its attachments, which, in sight of the extreme misfortunes which
threaten it, it vainly attempts to break. Yet sometimes it effects that
without trouble and quickly, which it failed to do with its whole power
and in the course of years, whence we may fairly conclude that it is
by itself that its desires are inflamed, rather than by the beauty and
merit of its objects, that its own taste embellishes and heightens them;
that it is itself the game it pursues, and that it follows eagerly
when it runs after that upon which itself is eager. It is made up of
contraries. It is imperious and obedient, sincere and false, piteous
and cruel, timid and bold. It has different desires according to the
diversity of temperaments, which turn and fix it sometimes upon riches,
sometimes on pleasures. It changes according to our age, our fortunes,
and our hopes; it is quite indifferent whether it has many or one,
because it can split itself into many portions, and unite in one as
it pleases. It is inconstant, and besides the changes which arise
from strange causes it has an infinity born of itself, and of its own
substance. It is inconstant through inconstancy, of lightness, love,
novelty, lassitude and distaste. It is capricious, and one sees it
sometimes work with intense eagerness and with incredible labour to
obtain things of little use to it which are even hurtful, but which it
pursues because it wishes for them. It is silly, and often throws its
whole application on the utmost frivolities. It finds all its pleasure
in the dullest matters, and places its pride in the most contemptible.
It is seen in all states of life, and in all conditions; it lives
everywhere and upon everything; it subsists on nothing; it accommodates
itself either to things or to the want of them; it goes over to
those who are at war with it, enters into their designs, and, this is
wonderful, it, with them, hates even itself; it conspires for its own
loss, it works towards its own ruin--in fact, caring only to exist, and